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I have to admit I had never watched a minute of Bachelor in Paradise until Monday night’s episode. It seems to be where previous contestants from The Bachelor and Bachelorette go after their blood tests.

Monday night we snooped in, Big Brother-like, on seven buff dudes and six well-tanned ladies in some Gilligan’s Island-like resort in Mexico. The object of the game seems to be that these folks all go on dates and then roses are exchanged and the least creepy couple eventually emerges victorious.

Besides recycling contestants, the show also recycles lines from the other Bachelor episodes. “Tonight there is trouble in paradise,” we are told. We are also warned of a “shocking change of heart you won’t see coming!”

The show begins with Michelle crying on the shoulders of hunky dudes. “I came to paradise to find love!” she moans. Michelle is upset became Robert had a date card and chose to ask Sarah to be his lady for a day.

Michelle starts sobbing in the bathroom and her buddy Graham goes to comfort her. “I’m so dumb,” she says from behind the bathroom door. “What’s wrong with me?” The sound is bad, and I start wondering if this isn’t just outtakes from past Bachelor shows.

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Michelle feels jinxed because she’s a single mom and has a daughter back home and none of the men on this beach want kids around when they’re trying to pump iron or work on their tan.

Michelle is worried she’ll be eliminated, but since she’s the narrator and drives most of the action as this show’s Alexis Carrington, she ain’t going anywhere.

Underneath all that silicon beats a heart of gold. Michelle even braids Sarah’s hair to show that there are no hard feelings.

Robert and Sarah do all the usual date things, including that scene from Titanic on the bow of a yacht before jumping into the ocean off Mexico to swim with dolphins. Sarah says she feels so safe swimming with Robert. Everything everyone says on the show, when they’re not fighting, is just an endless string of banalities.

Michelle’s only hope is tricking a new guy into asking her out on a date. New men keep dropping into the show, like Cody, who looks like a young Brett Hull on Human Growth Hormones.

Cody, who has a date card, “comes in like a wrecking ball,” as one of the ladies puts it. He seems affable enough and immediately targets Clare as his dream date. Clare, however, already has a thing going with Zack.

Clare — who may or may not have done something nasty in the water with Juan Pablo on The Bachelor — tells Cody she has to talk things over with Zack first. Zack acts like he couldn’t care less if Clare dated the entire Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

You can tell Zack is a jerk because he wears his baseball cap backwards and is always hiding behind his shades. Somehow Clare sticks with this fool anyway and tells Cody thanks but no thanks.

There is a scene where Zack talks over his predicament with another dude. This never happens as guys don’t talk to each other about woman stuff. This is just to drag the Cody-Clare and Zack arc out for a whole half hour.

Finally Clare tells Cody she’s sticking with Zack for now. Clare says she wants a man who steps up, but she ditches the dude who did for the dude who didn’t. “Exactly,” say all men watching at home, although in their inner voice.

Cody still has his date card, but he’s bummed that Clare won’t go out with him so he hands it off to Marcus. There’s an awkward moment where it looks like Cody and Marcus might go on the date together, but then Marcus asks Lacy to be his date.

Cody giving up his date card only makes Clare want him more and question her decision to stick with that idiot Zack.

This kind of stuff goes on and on for two hours. It’s like 33-year-olds behaving like high school kids. The acting is awful, as if all the men who tried and failed to become porn stars were directed straight to the Bachelor casting offices.

Marcus takes Lacy to a secret place and the dialogue is crazy bad. “Here’s to an amazing, spontaneous night,” is read off a cue card. Lacy says she sees a future with this guy. This leads to necking and stuff.

Meanwhile, Zack tries to backpedal his indifference with Clare. Music straight out of Desperate Housewives swells in the background. Clare starts smooching with Zack. Clare is an idiot.

Speaking of idiots, Kalon shows up on the beach. This cad repulsed women everywhere as one of the most insensitive Bachelor dudes ever. He has a date card, and asks desperate Michelle to be his spelunking partner. She says she’d love that, but instantly regrets it.

Kalon then cements his reputation as a total D-bag by telling the camera dude that he just wants to “zip line straight into her [bleeped].” He did not mean her heart. This is followed by some head shaking and motor-boat references. Even would have been appalled.

Michelle, to her credit, wakes up the next morning and goes straight to Kalon’s hut and tells him he was disrespectful to girls in the past and that the deal is off.

Our hero then approaches two bikini-clad contestants tanning on the beach. “What’s up ladies?” he says, “You’re posted here like a couple of lizards.”

Despite this smooth approach, he gets shot down. He tries another lass, who also gives him no love. One girl says he won’t get close enough to her mouth for her to vomit into his mouth. Just to be clear, this was on opposite The Emmys, the annual salute to the best in television.

The guy still has this free pass to a romantic getaway. Does he pass it on to another fellow like gallant Cody? He does not. He goes on the date alone.

Kalon, as others observe, finally found somebody he would want to spend the rest of his life with — himself. He zip lines straight up his own behind.

Kalon provides some much-needed comic relief and macho humiliation. Unfortunately, the show lurches back to the Clare-Zack storyline.

AshLee, who should raise suspicions just for spelling her name that way, corners Zack in a hammock and tells him Clare is a cheap little hussy who was caught playing with soccer boy Juan Pablo. This is somehow the first Zack has heard of this despite the fact it all played out before a national television audience.

AshLee then realizes she’s been caught ratting out Clare on a secret camera.

It all gets back to Clare, who has it out with Zack. “I didn’t come here to get involved in girls fighting about this stuff,” says Mr. Sensitive, who is shown Clare’s back.

Clare and AshLee have it out, and although there is no hair-pulling pool fight, it is the Dynasty moment. “You and I are not friends,” says Clare, accusing AshLee of throwing her under the bus.

We go to the rose ceremony, and on cue Michelle sticks her nose in, telling Graham that his gal pal AshLee is a big phony back-stabber. This so rattles Graham that at the rose ceremony – when AshLee offers him a rose to keep him in the game – that he walks off the set. Michelle chases after him. AshLee looks stunned. Fade to back and “TO. . . BE. . . CONTINUED” flashes on the screen.

Two hours, and nobody is eliminated. Will Michelle save her last-minute masseuse, Cody? Will Kalon find true happiness with his own self? Has Graham already left to audition for Naked Dating? I don’t think I could watch another minute of this to find out without vomiting in my own mouth.

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